Community activists joined supporters seeking justice for the Michael Brown and Abdul Kamal killings as they all gathered at the Lincoln Monument on Springfield Avenue in Newark yesterday for a peaceful rally.
“May I ask a question? My stepson was unarmed, shot and killed by three Irvington police officers,” Nadida Tuhada Amatullah-Matin told the AmNews. “Abdul’s body laid uncovered in the freezing cold November streets, riddled with 10 bullets. His death certificate reads: ‘homicide. Shot by law enforcement’! Is it because we didn’t riot and loot that his murder went unnoticed?” Abdul Kamal was killed when members of the Irvington police department responded to a domestic-violence call involving Kamal and his girlfriend. The Peoples’ Organizations for Progress sponsored the rally and acknowledged the struggles of Eric Garner’s family and of activist Mary Weaver, whose son was recently killed.
Matin said that the rally was an important way to highlight the injustices of police brutality against people of color across the country. “We need to continue to stress that if we do nothing, there will be others lying dead in our streets at the hands of those who took an oath to protect and serve,” she said.
Irvington NAACP President Kathleen Witcher told the AmNews, “We are here to memorialize the police-brutality shooting of Adbul Kamal, who was killed on Stanley Street on Nov. 11, 2013. Today, there are still no answers as to what happened in his murder.”
“The investigation into the death of Abdul Kamal is continuing, and the matter will likely be presented to a grand jury within the next 60 days,” said Thomas S. Fennelly, chief assistant prosecutor, Homicide and Narcotics Task Force, Essex County Prosecutors’ Office